The emotive cheese
I am begrieved by a loss of words, and can only think of pictures that I want to take, voices I want to record, music I
want to play, films I want to make, objects and places and faces and gestures and light and eyes and glances and
essences i want to record (we must come up with a better word than 'essence'). This is the autocommunicative
burden. What's more, there is only one person (or two, three?) that I want to reveal it all to. What happens when
that person is the object of one's own silence, and doesn't know the difference. It all becomes emotive cheese
because it all becomes selfish or something pop-sentimental like that. This is why I want to create--to serve others.
Any discussion about why we feel the need to create is a parody--it has become a cliche, disdainful, and absurd. I
really hate the world of artists and architects. I don't want that prize and I'm fed up with their discussions on the
meaning of art, why they would die if unable able to create, the reasons for expression and shit like that. It's
hollow, and I am fearful of that art world because it is all hollow by the same vanity. And it is lonely. So lonely is that
art world that so many become duped into. A melancholic wishes to keep his reasons to create to himself, and to God,
and to the person that still--still (can you believe it!?)--manages to invoke the emotive cheese. Then it becomes service
to that singular, remarkable one. The person, the persons, those fellows, thanes, companions, lovers, ....
Chanson du jour: Requiem for a Dream (Clint Mansell), Lux Aeterna
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Land preservation in Michigan
Recently, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy released a summary of a report that assessed some $800 million
that the State of Michigan has spent since 1974 to preserve open land and protect it from development. Out of
the splendid assortment of the facts they reported on, clearly indicating that they missed the point entirely, the
one that pissed me off the most was their criticism of where the money was spent. And that was this: only 28.5
percent of these public funds was directed to preserve farms in high-growth counties. An extension of that
factoid is this: "Five of the 17 highest-growth counties — Livingston, Macomb, Midland, Oakland and St. Clair —
had zero enrollments in the farmland preservation program in 1997, 1998 and 1999." But what the hell do they
expect as a conservative think tank? The late nineties was a stoned orgy of reckless sprawl and natural resource
exploitation. What's ironic, and literary, is that the very people that were in the position to regulate where funds
for farm preservation were directed were the same property rights maniacs insisting on more and more sprawl.
It shouldn't be a surprise to anybody--particularly conservatives--that so few funds (28.5%)
were used for preservation in high-growth counties. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy has no right to criticize
the program for this statistic, as it was the conservative platform that they absurdly defend that made the whole
thing so ineffective in the first place! No typical conservative in government would allow such a foolish and
misguided thing to occur; they didn't want to piss off their constituents and developer buddies in the staunchly
conservative suburbs who were racking the dough in just as fast and to the same horrible intensity that they
were chewing up the land to put up frickin' Wal-Marts and Jiffy Lubes and strip housing subdivisions for fertile
young accountant families. Preserving open space in such fast-growing areas would be crazy and self-defeating
for them! It's an arrogant trick for conservatives to scheme for this program's ineffectiveness and then point to it
as a programmatic flaw. But then again, who should be surprised? It's the same old crap that it always has been.
Chanson du jour: something angsty.
that the State of Michigan has spent since 1974 to preserve open land and protect it from development. Out of
the splendid assortment of the facts they reported on, clearly indicating that they missed the point entirely, the
one that pissed me off the most was their criticism of where the money was spent. And that was this: only 28.5
percent of these public funds was directed to preserve farms in high-growth counties. An extension of that
factoid is this: "Five of the 17 highest-growth counties — Livingston, Macomb, Midland, Oakland and St. Clair —
had zero enrollments in the farmland preservation program in 1997, 1998 and 1999." But what the hell do they
expect as a conservative think tank? The late nineties was a stoned orgy of reckless sprawl and natural resource
exploitation. What's ironic, and literary, is that the very people that were in the position to regulate where funds
for farm preservation were directed were the same property rights maniacs insisting on more and more sprawl.
It shouldn't be a surprise to anybody--particularly conservatives--that so few funds (28.5%)
were used for preservation in high-growth counties. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy has no right to criticize
the program for this statistic, as it was the conservative platform that they absurdly defend that made the whole
thing so ineffective in the first place! No typical conservative in government would allow such a foolish and
misguided thing to occur; they didn't want to piss off their constituents and developer buddies in the staunchly
conservative suburbs who were racking the dough in just as fast and to the same horrible intensity that they
were chewing up the land to put up frickin' Wal-Marts and Jiffy Lubes and strip housing subdivisions for fertile
young accountant families. Preserving open space in such fast-growing areas would be crazy and self-defeating
for them! It's an arrogant trick for conservatives to scheme for this program's ineffectiveness and then point to it
as a programmatic flaw. But then again, who should be surprised? It's the same old crap that it always has been.
Chanson du jour: something angsty.
Monday, August 11, 2003
Lardass Americans
Storage bins for flab at the new west-side Taco Bell
Last Friday, the Lansing State Journal reported that "west-side Taco Bell patrons want more space."
Surprise, surprise. I can't decide if the restaurant's cramped or they just need more ass-room. Things like this
are exactly what make contemporary life in America so readily insipid. The west-side Lansing Taco Bell that the
article refers to is planning on building a bigger and better lard vat across the eight-lane sprawlscape
pseudo-freeway from its current location. Naturally, the plan features even more parking; even more parking
because there's no way on earth anybody could ever access a hepatitis spawnscape like Taco Bell in this nuclear winter of asphalt
and concrete and utility poles where fourth-rate businesses deposit themselves like they were hawkers waiting
at the gates of Hell. Anybody seen on foot in a sprawlscape like this would be assumed to be either a schizo or
tripped up on some haaaaaarrrd shit. I imagine that the only exception to this would be immigrant hotel maids
and kids from the projects wheelin' over on their bmx's to indulge in some foul goopy pigeon and muskrat meat
with diarhea bean sauce. And this is what it means that we're 'fighting for our freedom?' Damn--I'd much rather let 'the
terrorists' go giddy-high with bombs and planes on the sprawlscapes of America than strip search folks with dark
skin in the airports. And this way, they'd have a way to blow off all that insano angst. On a more realistic
and less needlessly cynical level, I just can't believe that the Lansing State Journal reports on nonsense like this.
Fighting for our Freedom, fighting to protect the American Way of Life
While the 'WAR' (oooooh!) is still going on, here's a reminder of what we're fighting to protect, lest we forget:
http://www.texasfreeway.com/houston/photos/i10w/i10w.shtml
Chanson du Jour: Sigur Ros, Untitled No. 5
Last Friday, the Lansing State Journal reported that "west-side Taco Bell patrons want more space."
Surprise, surprise. I can't decide if the restaurant's cramped or they just need more ass-room. Things like this
are exactly what make contemporary life in America so readily insipid. The west-side Lansing Taco Bell that the
article refers to is planning on building a bigger and better lard vat across the eight-lane sprawlscape
pseudo-freeway from its current location. Naturally, the plan features even more parking; even more parking
because there's no way on earth anybody could ever access a hepatitis spawnscape like Taco Bell in this nuclear winter of asphalt
and concrete and utility poles where fourth-rate businesses deposit themselves like they were hawkers waiting
at the gates of Hell. Anybody seen on foot in a sprawlscape like this would be assumed to be either a schizo or
tripped up on some haaaaaarrrd shit. I imagine that the only exception to this would be immigrant hotel maids
and kids from the projects wheelin' over on their bmx's to indulge in some foul goopy pigeon and muskrat meat
with diarhea bean sauce. And this is what it means that we're 'fighting for our freedom?' Damn--I'd much rather let 'the
terrorists' go giddy-high with bombs and planes on the sprawlscapes of America than strip search folks with dark
skin in the airports. And this way, they'd have a way to blow off all that insano angst. On a more realistic
and less needlessly cynical level, I just can't believe that the Lansing State Journal reports on nonsense like this.
Fighting for our Freedom, fighting to protect the American Way of Life
While the 'WAR' (oooooh!) is still going on, here's a reminder of what we're fighting to protect, lest we forget:
http://www.texasfreeway.com/houston/photos/i10w/i10w.shtml
Chanson du Jour: Sigur Ros, Untitled No. 5
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